Category: Leadership of Innovation

What makes Israel such a hotbed of Innovation?

What makes Israel so successful at business innovation particularly in the high-tech field?  Each year this tiny country of 7 million people attracts some $2 billion in venture capital funding – about as much as Germany and France combined.  When you adjust for population Israel leads the world in the number of high-tech start-ups and the size of the venture-capital industry.  The country... Read More--

Who are a company’s most important stakeholders?

Peter Drucker The CEO and his or her executive team have to satisfy and balance the demands of various parties. Sometimes these demands are in conflict and one has to be prioritized over another. So what is the pecking order among the company’s stakeholders? When it comes to the crunch whose needs should be met first? Here is a suggested order of preference. 1. Customers. Peter Drucker defined the... Read More--

What Criteria do you use for New Product Selection?

How do you set a strategy for innovation in your products or services?  There are many approaches and to be honest some of the common ones are tactical rather than strategic. Let’s look at some possible criteria that you might use to select what your next new product will be. 1. Does it meet our corporate vision and business strategy? This is a good generic criterion but it can be too broad to... Read More--

Show the Destination but let your People Choose the Route

Empowerment is a key component in a culture of innovation.   How can you encourage the creativity to make innovation happen?  Often the best source for innovation is the team within your business. A great leader can turn cubicle dwellers into entrepreneurs who are hungrily looking for new opportunities. The key is empowerment. By empowering people you enable them to achieve goals through their own... Read More--

Outstanding leaders set outstanding expectations

Many business leaders plan set modest expectations.  They plan goals  that they are confident can be achieved. This way everyone can get a pat on the back when the plan is reached.  Growth in revenue in line with the market at 4% and growth in profits of 5% is the sort of thing. Many directors would be delighted with this sort of result. The trouble with this approach is that it reinforces incrementalism.... Read More--

Five ways to innovate on Slender Means

When times are tough the need to innovate increases.  Innovation can help you to cut costs, improve margins, retain customers, acquire new customers, gain market share and ultimately to survive. But when you are cutting costs and squeezing resources in all areas how can you find the people, time and money for innovation? Since experiments are not guaranteed to succeed it can look wasteful to fund... Read More--

Think the Unthinkable – Ask ‘Who killed our business?’

We can broadly simplify innovations into two kinds – incremental and radical. Incremental innovations are improvements to current products, methods, processes, services, partnerships and so on. Customer complaints and suggestions are a good source of ideas for incremental improvements. So are the people who work in the organization. If you ask customers how your product could be better or if... Read More--

Allow Suggestions to Bypass the Line Manager

You can encourage ideas from staff members with suggestion schemes and idea events.  In doing so it is important to ensure that there is a facility for individuals to bypass their line manager if necessary. Line managers can be resistant to ideas from their own people for a variety of reasons. They might fear that the person making the suggestion might be taken away from them to implement it. They... Read More--

No Good Joke Survives a Committee of Six

Velocity; the Seven New Laws for a World gone Digital, is an excellent book on business strategy by Ajaz Ahmed and Stefan Olander.  One of the ‘seven laws’ is this, no good joke survives a committee of six.  In the book the story is told of Tony Blair’s final speech as leader to the Labour Party Conference in 2006.  The day before the speech was to be given, Tony Blair’s... Read More--

Teams that Get on Well Together are Less Creative

If you ask hiring managers what they are looking for in a candidate they will often say, ‘ I want someone who will get on well with the team.’ They want someone who will fit in and reinforce the team spirit. Homogeneous teams that get on well together may be good for executing clear plans but the evidence shows that they are less creative than diverse teams that have some internal tensions. In... Read More--